Ben's Book Blog: (***) The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki
Ben's Book Blog: (***) The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki: "[In 1906, British scientist Francis Galton analyzed the guesses to a contest where patrons wagered on the weight of butchered meat from a fat ox.] Galton arranged the guesses (787 in total) in order from highest to lowest and calculated the mean of the group�s guesses� Galton undoubtedly thought that the avg guess of the group would be way off the mark. After all, mix a few very smart people [butchers, farmers, cattlemen, well smart when it comes to slaughtering cattle at least] with some mediocre and dumb people [county fair patrons], and it seems likely that you�ll end up with a dumb answer. But Galton was wrong. The crowd had guessed that the ox, after it had been slaughtered and dressed, would weight 1,197lbs� The ox [actually] weighed 1,198lbs. In other word, the crowd�s judgement was essentially perfect.� PxiiiIn 1968, the US sub Scorpion disappeared in the North Atlantic� Although the Navy knew the sub�s last reported location, it had no idea what had happened to the Scorpion, and only the vaguest sense of how far it might have traveled after it had last made radio contact. As a result, the area where the navy began searching was a circle 20 miles wide and many 1000s of feet deep. You could not imagine a more hopeless task� A naval officer, John Craven concocted a series of scenarios� Then he assembled a team of men with a wide range of knowledge including mathematicians, submarine specialists, salvage men, etc. Instead of asking them to consult w/each other to come up with an answer, he asked each of them to offer his best guess about how likely each scenario was� He took all the guesses, and used a formula called Baye�s theorem to estimate the Scorpion�s final location. The location that Craven "
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